Hundreds of 1199SEIU members picketed Northwell Health’s Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH) on Oct. 2 to push the healthcare mega-system to settle a contract with physician assistants (PAs) who voted overwhelmingly for 1199 membership in an August election.

Since then, Northwell has been dragging its feet at the bargaining table, even as PAs and other SIUH 1199ers insist the professionals should simply be covered under Northwell’s existing collective bargaining agreement with the Union.

“Every time we meet, they don’t have answers for us,” said SIUH PA Dawn Cuttrone. “They made it clear that they don’t want to put us in the National Benefit Fund, and since then we’ve had two more meetings where nothing got resolved.”

Louis Jimenez, who has worked in plant operations at SIUH for 26 years, says Northwell is attempting to push the PAs out of the Union while sending a signal to all the hospital’s workers.

“It’s not going to work,” he said. “We are all one big family here. Ever since Northwell took us over, they have been trying to take things away, but we won’t let them. We are going to stand up and we are going to fight—for all of us.”

1199 Magazine | November - December 2019